


Rabbit

by Intent_To_Stay



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Capitalism, Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, Light Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-15 04:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11798856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Intent_To_Stay/pseuds/Intent_To_Stay
Summary: Sometimes, Hana Song hates D.va. Other times she wishes she could live up to even a fraction of her own hype.(Or, the backstory that we all really needed.)





	1. The Other

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for off-screen character death, financial coercion and exploitation, and mental health issues.

When they open the beta, it's because they are desperate. A good mech, a high quality long distance one, took a whole team to pilot effectively. There were too many sensory inputs required to be aware of what needed to happen, too many mechanics that needed constant control. It took _teams_ to take a mechanical body into combat, they insisted. One person will get overwhelmed.   
  
Of course, teamwork didn't do much good once those pretty little mechs went offline.   
  
They open the beta to anyone who can handle the sensory input. Who can meet the standards for control. Because they are desperate, they allow anyone and everyone to give it a try. Casting a wide net. Ninety seven percent of applicants are immediately discarded. Not fast enough. Not aware enough. Not efficient enough.   
  
Hana song is already well known. She’s eighteen, with an entertainment empire and several victorious gaming tournaments under her belt. She live streams her trial run, tearing into the mission protocols with a ruthless efficiency. She cuts the chat feed, doesn't look at it once. If she did, she'd see things like:  
  
_i don't know about that face  
  
woah shes intense   
  
brutal man just brutal  
  
shes pretty decent but i cant see the hype  
  
Yeah she's good now but what if there's a repeat of the 74 tournament? She'll lose a lot more than her reputation—  
_  
She reads these thing later, and stops only when she gets a call on her cell. She doesn't recognize the number. She knows what it's for anyway.  
  
"Hello."  
  
"We'd appreciate it if you came in for extended testing."  
  
Hana grins. "I'd love to."

* * *

 

Her friends—she has some, she has some who she truly loves, but they don’t see her, they see what she wants them to see, like with everyone else—they don’t understand. She has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

“I’m mean, I know it’s _insane_ for your publicity, it’s amazing that you got a call back,” they gush, “But this is dangerous. How far are you going to take it?”

And D.va pats her friends’ heads and kisses their cheeks and hugs them tightly, fiercely. “I promise I’ll be fine.”

What she doesn’t say: “I’m going all the way to the top.” 

* * *

  
The testing isn't very extended. She decimates them. She can out maneuver, out aim, out think all of the applicants. They repeat trials. They manipulate the variables. It doesn't matter. The result is the same. 

Hana Song is young and childish and the most efficient killer they have to offer.

"This isn't real," they snap at her when she gets cocky. "A simulation and a meka are different."  
  
Hana hums and shrugs and when their backs are turned, she sticks her tongue out at them.   
  
It doesn't matter to the people in charge. They are desperate after all. They wire up personal neural links for the best competitors. Hana is the youngest. The medi-techs worry about it affecting her growth. About it interfering with her brain. A mech relies upon manual control, but the sensory input is most effective when given a direct link to the nerves. The tech isn’t tested on children, they insist.  
  
"It's just an upgrade," she replies.   
  
They wire her up the same as anybody else.   
  
She isn't the only gamer. There's a fair share who are willing to fight and have the skills needed. The ones there are big time, but not the most famous. Maybe they think this is their chance to score a following. However, most of them are soldiers. Hana is not allowed to forget this.   
  
The first time she steps into her mech and feels the neural connection latch onto the port at the back of her neck, it's like flying. Suddenly, she has input that there is no way to process. It’s like the strongest gust of ocean wind tearing over her skin. 

She stumbles.   
  
She walks.   
  
She is the first to push her mech into the air and soar up into the sky.   
  
Most of the pilots are soldiers. Military. Older. More experienced, they insist. Combat experience that makes up for slower reaction time. The proctors have high expectations for them.  
  
Hana makes sure that they never forget the first day of training simulations, where she killed every single one of them.   
  
_Simulations,_ they say, _are not combat. This isn't a game._    
  
And Hana nods. Later that night, she posts a vlog. She can't say anything classified. Not yet. There will be a time for publicity. But not yet.   
  
"I'm so sorry that I won't be streaming for these next few weeks,” she pouts, miming a heart breaking between her hands. She leans in close to the camera, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper; “But I promise, when I pick up again, you will see something that you'll never believe."

* * *

  
  
Hana is still experimenting with her self destruct.   
  
"And you can't leave your self without cover, Song. This will blow you to pieces. Only trigger it when you've been given the green light by HQ, because otherwise you will be left on the battle field without armor."

And Hana nods, her mind furiously tearing into the battle map before her. She spies holes in the plan. She voices them. 

They tell her to leave the strategy to the soldiers. _This isn’t a video game, Song._

She leaves the strategy to the soldiers. If they want to ignore her, she has no problem with that. She has her own irons in the fire, and she is too busy learning how to divert signals to an alternate router to argue too much.

 

* * *

 

The titan attacks ahead of schedule. They predicted another two weeks before it would reach Seoul. They were wrong. And so they are sent out, underplanned and with no fucking clue what to do. 

They drop her to the ground. She is gunmetal grey and indistingushable from any other pilot on the ground. Her interface activates. The neural load comes in. Her headset buzzes with words.

“Attack squadron, this is HQ. Are you in position?”

“HQ, this is Red One,” the leader says. “We are in position. Requesting orders.”

The leader is a soldier. He isn’t the best, but he is the best over thirty. He knows protocol.

“Red Squadron, sound off.”

“Red two. In position.”

“Red three is in position.”

Hana Song breathes in the faintest hint of smoke that managed to slip through her air scrubbers. “Red four is online.”

“You are clear to engage. Hostiles are within expected parameters.”

“This is Red One. We are moving to engage”

And they do engage. They rush forward, is a chaotic sort of synchronized dance, calling out maneuvers and targets same as the training simulations.

About half way through, Hana is forced to admit that they were right. Piloting in combat isn’t the same. Not even the most realistic headset can mimic the scream of gunfire and whirl of mechanics. Every slug embedded in her metal limbs hits her like a static shock. Her heart is racing in way that has nothing to do with exhaustion.

“Red four, fall back! You’re over extended!”

Hana snarls, because she is so _close._

“I have full mechanical capability, I am in position to flank—“

“That is an order!” 

And Hana is able to admit that they are wrong. This is a game. This is the highest stakes game that she has ever played. It isn’t just her life on the line. It’s the lives of everyone who couldn’t evacuate fast enough behind her. It’s the lives of her fellow MEKA pilots, who don’t have the health to push forward because they screwed up their positioning.

And knowing this, she can’t leave the strategy to the soldiers. 

She takes a deep, centering breath, listens to the chatter in her ear, and then runs a bootleg relay chip on her audio-visual sensors, streaming live to her personal website. 

“Red Four, we are detecting rouge signals from your mech.”

Hana ignores them. "I'm not sure if anyone is listening," she says, staring down the titan before her and clambering over the corpses of the omnics surrounding her, "but this one goes out to my fans."

* * *

  
They are furious with her.   
  
"You are not here to entertain people anymore, Song. You are an active combatant and you _will_ follow protocol."  
  
"You broadcasted classified operational details to anyone."  
  
"This isn't a _game_!"  
  
They talk about court martialing her. Treason, they gasp. Broadcasting classified information to the enemy. Insubordination. Putting her fellow pilots in danger. Criminal negligence and destruction of government property.  
  
If they decide to go through with it, they will have to wait for her to get out of the hospital.   


* * *

  
  
Later, her friend asks her why she bothered. She had to know that it had no good ending.   
  
Hana is quiet for once. "If I died," she finally decides to say, "I didn't want to do it alone."  


* * *

  
The next time she has an unknown number call her, she has no idea who it is. She answers it anyway.   
  
"Hello?"  
  
"I'm with MEKA. We'd like for you to be our spokesperson."  
  
Hana grips her phone a little tighter. "I'm sorry. I am no longer affiliated with the South Korean military. I'm not able to talk--"  
  
"We cleared up that dreadful misunderstanding."  
  
There wasn't a misunderstanding. The facts were clear. The committee decided that despite Hana's efficiency, she was too young to be placed in active combat when she had no regard for authority.   
  
There was no misunderstanding. Hana wanted to protect her home. And being good wasn't good enough.   
  
"Your stream generated a a metric ton of positive publicity. And the military has agreed to allow private donations to help fund the MEKA initiative. Your employment and immediate reinstatement were part of the conditions."  
  
Hana blinks. "You--"  
  
"We want you to pilot. We want you to be the face of the MEKA program."  
  
Hana bites her cheek. Her voice doesn't betray her racing pulse. "I have some conditions."  
  
"Name them."  
  
"I want to stream."  
  
"Miss Song, that is wonderful," the man gushes in a voice so sugary that it tips over into condescension. "Because we want you to stream as well. You would have to include a few advertisements, but we are thrilled that you want to continue."  
  
Corporations donating to the program. Of course they want to get a share of the spotlight. It's patriotism, they can insist, even though everyone with a brain knows it's about capitalism.   
  
But Hana has sold out to sponsors before. She can't see the difference in doing it again.   
  
"And I want my mech pink."  


* * *

  
She already has an image. It's easy to apply it to her new job.   
  
Hot pink and navy blue. A vicious rabbit displayed on her chest. A charm hanging from her gun. The stylized bunny ears on her headset. She’s cute and appealing and vicious, and that fantasy sells like hot cakes.   
  
Some days she feels like she's playing dress up. It makes it easier to leap out of her mech and face down omnics with nothing but a tiny pulse pistol.   
  
Some days it makes her feel like no one takes her seriously.   
  
She'll just have to be the best then, until they change their minds. She’ll just have to keep climbing until there is no way that they can ignore her.  
  


* * *

 

  
The second time the titan comes, they lose half of their pilots within the first two minutes. Hana get put out of her mech and there isn't a drop ship ready to get to her.   
  
She kills several omnics with nothing but a little pistol, her rabbit keychain winking up at her. That's how it goes. Practice makes perfect, and Hana has done nothing but practice for the last year.   
  
"I'm in position," she snarls into her ear piece.   
  
She toggles her streams in times like these. The audience doesn't need to be bored with watching her hide and try not to die. They need to help her rack up enough money to pay for the robot being sent down to her, so they are watching her hype up cola in some pre-shot commercial she barely remembers.   
  
"Mech drop in three, two, one--"  
  
Her mech crashes to the earth and Hana launches herself inside.   
  
"Core is nuclear, we have a backup for whenever you are ready."  
  
Hana switches her stream back over to herself and she mows down the lesser omnics that tried to corner her. "Hey, guys," she coos into her mic, engaging her thrusters to dodge the giant arm trying to crush her. She balances on top of the broken crest of a skyscraper, waiting for her cool down to reset. "What do we say to titans in our city?"  
  
She can't hear them. That doesn't matter. She knows what they are saying, what they are all typing into their computers world wide.

Maybe it’s childish, but it makes her brave.  
  
Hana sets her trajectory, jams her thrusters on, and leaps from her mech.   
  
"NERF THIS!"  


* * *

 

They have her selling advertising space on her thighs.  
  
"Someone has to pay for all those mechs that you destroy, Song."  
  
She sells advertisements for everything. Soda. Clothing. Merchandise. She gets a cut. Her stream revenues have tripled. She is the most famous streamer in the world.   
  
People cosplay her. _NERF THIS!_  Is graffitied on destroyed buildings, a rallying cry of a tired people. The Korean government thanks her for her service with one breath and belittles her with another.   
  
Hana is rolling in money, and most of it goes toward paying for mechs.   
  
But that is fine. She's the best they have. _Not just a pretty face,_ they tease in interviews. 

 _Oh, definitely,_ Hana giggles.   
  
She's winning. That's what matters. 

* * *

  
  
"There's no doubt that D.va is good, but I feel like the media might be overstating her role in dealing with the omnic crisis."  
  
"Are you implying that her streams are doctored?"  
  
"I'm not sure about going that far just yet. But we have no frame of reference. We have no idea if she's doing average for a mech pilot and she's just getting the attention because she is a good mascot for the industries that fund MEKA."  
  
Hana forces herself to watch. It isn't pleasant. She curses her laptop a few times. But she watches.   
  
"She's made mistakes. We've seen plenty of think pieces that go over her streams. She tends to be too reckless with her mech. Last week, she put two other pilots out of their own suits because she launched her self destruct on a whim."  
  
"But that explosion _decimated_ the enemy. Her co pilots had plenty of clear space to work with."  
  
"But what if it hadn't worked? She could've gotten herself and others killed if she didn't time it correctly. "  
  
"I think it's unproductive to go into hypotheticals--"  
  
They think she's just another pretty face. Empty airhead. Same as always.   
  
The next time she has to deal with an attack, she keeps a close eye on her accuracy and eliminations. She goes over her own streams and annotates on her tablet, taking note of every single time her position made her vulnerable. She hunts down soldiers who are sick and tired of her, and she forces them to tell her what they know about warfare.

(It isn’t much that she doesn’t already know. But some of it helps.) 

She makes sure that every time after that, she gets better and better. 

* * *

  
  
She sometimes forgets that she can't fly outside her mech. She's surrounded by fans, and they are all cheering, all looking up to her in delight, and all she wants to do is engage her thrustors and fly away.   
  
But she can't do that. Right now, she's not D.va the mech pilot. She little Hana Song playing dress up in her battle armor. She tilts her head and grins coyly, posing for the paparazzi. It never used to feel like a performance. It felt like joy and fun—greeting fans, making people laugh and cheer and smile. 

But today she is exhausted, with triple-heavy-duty concealer under her eyes, and all she wants to do is go home and soak herself in ice water until her nerves quit igniting from phantom, twice-synthetic-nerve-filtered-bullet fire.

That is not an option. D.va doesn’t get hurt. She doesn’t feel tired. She doesn’t flinch when she sees crowds and hears screams. She doesn’t feel naked and vulnerable without a giant metal robot to hide inside. 

Those are weaknesses for Hana Song, and not a single person in this room cares about that girl.

"Love, D.va."

* * *

  
  
They don't inform her the next time mechs are sent out. They purposefully leave her out of the loop. She doesn't realize that there's been an attack until she hops onto her computer and begins live streaming Starcraft and her chat explodes, asking why she didn't stream the latest assault.   
  
And Hana Song quits her stream two minutes in.   
  
She has her agent on the line. "Did you know?"  
  
"We thought it would be best to give you a break. We have that photo shoot tomorrow, Miss Song, and you have a tendency to ruin your beautiful skin when you go into combat."  
  
Another pretty face.   
  
Hana stares at the headlines on her laptop.   
  
_FOUR MEKA PILOTS DEAD IN LATEST ATTACK  
  
Omnics overwhelmed by MEKA pilots; heavy casualties._  

_Where is D.va?_

She snarls and hurls her phone across the room. 

* * *

  
She goes to her photo shoot. The makeup artist takes one look at her and sighs. "Have you been crying?"  
  
Hana thinks about her persona. D.va doesn't cry. D.va cheers and makes clever quips and blows kisses to the metal corpses of her enemy. D.va is brave. She is so much braver than little Hana Song, playing dress up for the cameras and crying her eyes out because her co pilots died while she wasn't there—  
  
"No."  
  
The makeup artist sighs and grabs an ice pack. 

* * *

 

She goes to the funerals. They are all funded and taken care of by MEKA. The gamers are huge. They got that popularity and fame which they were so desperate for. Thousands come to pay their respects. They leave flowers and trinkets and prayers.   
  
The soldiers are small and personal. Family and friends and their old co-workers. Crisp lines and formal suits. Traditions formed in blood and death and honor and meaninglessness. They are held in private. Hana doesn’t know if they were in it for glory or duty. She doesn’t know if it truly matters.  
  
She hides her face at both. With concealer over the tattoos on her cheeks and dressed conservatively in black, she is just another young girl. She slips through unnoticed. How would they recognize her? D.va never looks less than perfect, is never without a smile—sweet, victorious, threatening, it doesn't matter. D.va doesn't cry, doesn't have red eyes and doubts and thoughts like if only I had been there if only if only if only--  
  
She knows that one day, it will be her lying in a pretty pink coffin, and millions who don't know the slightest thing about her will come to mourn their loss. 

* * *

  
  
Someone leaks the RECALL.   
  
It trends on most media sites for days. Everyone laughs about it.   
  
_Overwatch was rotten to the core._

_That monkey is chasing a dream_

_oh yeah, this is a brilliant idea. i wonder why no one tried this before! oh wait! we did! and look what happened_  
  
They're all so cynical.   
  
She keeps streaming. Keeps dressing up in battle armor and fighting and fighting and fighting until her leg breaks when she mistimes a self destruct. And when she's laid up in the hospital, she hosts a Q &A because she hasn't had time to do one in weeks. A question catches her eye in the chat.   
  
_hey d.va would you join overwatch if you could?_  
  
And it throws her off guard. She's D.va. She sells products and kills omnics. She's Hana Song. She lies awake at night with the sound of bullets keeping her awake, feeling her phantom metal limbs get punctured and pierced and ripped to shreds.   
  
She isn't a hero.   
  
Instead, she says, "Aw, but what about my fans? I couldn't leave everyone!"  
  
Hana Song isn't a hero.   
  
But as she lies awake at night, scrolling through the latest patch updates on her mech, she thinks that she might want to be. 

 

* * *

 

Theres a tipping point. There usually is for most things. For Hana, it comes when she's at a press conference and she gets an alert.   
  
They won't let her leave.   
  
"You're doing more good here," they insist.   
  
"I'm not going to sit here while other pilots die!" She yells in her dressing room, removing the colored contacts from her eyes. She's already in her suit. There's not much else she needs to do.   
  
"Yes you are," her agent says. "Because you're the star. Without you, funding for the initiative will fall through. And if you leave this event, you are going to upset a lot of people."  
  
And she wavers. She lives off of making people happy. She's young. She wavers.   
  
"And other pilots need mechs."  
  
She stays. She smiles for the cameras. She's another pretty face.   
  
The next day, she reads the headlines. She does the math. Three pilots dead. 4.2 billion in property damage. Civilian casualties—  
  
She cries. She sobs. She attends funerals. She watches her chat blow up with questions.   
  
_Why weren't you there?  
  
What were you thinking  
  
Where were you when we needed it_  
  
And she thinks, "I was playing dress up."

* * *

  
  
She steals the blueprints to her MEKA. It's easy. No one suspects little Hana Song is brave enough or stupid enough to try. No one suspect she is less than perfectly content to be a mascot when she has spent the past year learning to be a warrior.  
  
But she is. 

She asks sweetly for the specs on her mech. She wants to understand the mechanics better. She wants to get better at her job.

People tell her not to worry about it. When she perseveres, they sigh. Afterall, what harm could pretty-faced, air-headed D.va do?

The answer is “a lot.” 

* * *

  
When she goes to Overwatch, she posts a vlog that trends for weeks at number one. She doesn’t drop it until she is already gone. She doesn’t tell her friends. She doesn’t tell her fellow pilots.

She tells it to the dead. She prays for courage to do the right thing. And she knows, that this is what is _right._

“I joined MEKA because I wanted to help people. I saw my chance to make a difference in the world. I saw my chance to do something brave.”

And Hana Song looks the camera dead in the eye. She is not sweet or young or joking. She is weary, with bags under her eyes and a sleep shirt spotted with bunnies and an anger burning in her gaze.

"I'm not going to sit here and look pretty while the world needs heroes."  
  
She grits her jaw and steels herself and signs off in the way she always has. 

"Love, D.va"


	2. Unfair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is rated teen which means i get to use one f bomb.

Technically she's committing treason. 

She really doesn't care.

Winston welcomes her to the Watchpoint. It's old and empty, like a grandiose frame that holds a painting a fraction of it’s potential. Sad in some ways. Hopeful in others. There’s room to add to the picture. There’s the freedom to change it completely

"Were, uh, still waiting for some members to answer the recall but until then, this will be your room." Winston pushes his glasses further up on his nose, peering at her like he still can’t believe that she’s real. Like he expects her to vanish if he looks the other way.

She’s more used to that kind of look than she would like to admit.

Hana's eyes sweep over the room. Empty and spartan. Old and unused and unloved. She runs a finger over the window seal and picks up a sheet of dust. "Do you have wifi?"

 

ooo

 

Later, her phone rings. It practically blows up. Some numbers she knows. Some, she doesn't. 

She doesn't answer. She turns her phone off. 

 

ooo

 

It's strange meeting the old guard.

Lena Oxton is bright as sunshine. She flits from place to place like a humming bird, and she's easy to love. Optimistic in a way that Hana can't comprehend.

D.va’s cheer is brutal in its pessimism. A “fuck you” to the state of the world. A defiance. Everyone loves a rebel. 

Lena’s is simple, disarmingly so. That’s probably why she’s the one to do the wider tour. Winston had shown her the facilities, but Lena had taken over for most else, shooing the scientist to get some rest. 

“Oi, Jesse! This is Hana, she’s from Seoul!” 

Said ‘Jesse’ is a cowboy, pensively watching the Gibraltar sunset from a platform over the ocean. He tilts his head back, a plume of smoke floating into the atmosphere, before rising to meet the two of them. “Well, good evening, Miss Oxton, Miss Han—”

He freezes, his metal arm reaching for the cigar in his mouth. It isn’t anything too obvious, just the way he cuts himself off and the widening of his eyes. But he’s surprised.

He recovers in a heartbeat, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He grins and tips his hat to her, effortless courtesy. Something about it is a bit forced.  

Hana gives a cheeky wave, eyes closed in a smile. She can relate. “Same!”

“I was just showing her around the ol’ place,” Lena offers, distracted by the ocean, but not willing to duck out of the conversation. She eyes the three-hundred-foot drop into the sea. It’s easy to see the pilot in her--someone who loves the freedom found in open air.

Jesse nods in understanding. “Wonderful time of day to see it ‘n all.” He takes a deep draw from his cigar, eyes turned to the sinking sun. “I’d hate to leave y’all, but I need to talk to Winston about some stuff. Didn’t mean to spend so much time out here.” He doesn’t check his watch.

Lena nods, hardly glancing away. “Oh, ‘course, luv. Don’t let us keep you.”

Jesse takes his leave and Hana waits a minute before asking, “Does he always wear the hat?”

“Hmm?” Lena looks over before nodding in delayed understanding. “Yeah, he’s always had that thing. Even back in the old days.”

“And the whole outfit?” Hana laughs just a little.

“Yep!” Lena shares a conspiratory look, grinning that mischievous sprite-smile of hers. “I didn’t see much of him, different departments an’ all, but he _loves_ his hat and boots. Never wears anything else.”

Hana shakes her head, giggling. She understands the need for a look and a brand, but no one in Seoul had claimed that entertainment niche. She thinks it has potential. “Lol.”

Lena laughs at that, as she always does.

“It’s so surreal to be back,” Lena confides after a moment. “So much has changed, y’know?”

Hana doesn’t, but she nods all the same. She glances back towards the pink sky, and for a second she searches for a skyline, jagged and reaching toward the stars. It disorients her to only see miles and miles of ocean.

Maybe she does understand; She’s new to Overwatch, but everything is changing about this world. It keeps getting smaller.

It makes her miss home more than she wants to admit.

“I need to talk to Winston too,” She says after a moment. “I want to get some of my streams back up.” And go to sleep.

“Uh, I guess we can—”

Hana waves her away. “I can get there just fine, Lena. Thanks so much for the tour!”

Lena tries to hide her relief. It doesn’t really work. “Well, then, I’ll see you around!” She edges closer to the cliffs, motion all discontinuous in the way it gets when she’s excited.

Hana takes her time to return to Winston’s lab. Her friends have tried contacting her through less traceable means, and Hana can’t help but want to respond. She misses holding hands and sharing meals and taking cute photos. Even though Hana always had secrets to keep and things she would rather not talk about, the physical distance is still painful. 

Without the threat of discovery, it’s hard to hold herself back.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to--

 

“I thought you wanted to better than this.” That’s Jesse, his previous drawl clipped short in anger. “You promised me that this--” 

Winston cuts in. “She volunteered. She’s already an active duty combatant.”

“She shouldn’t have to be.”

Hana stills, her hands clenched tight. There's a electric taste in her mouth, like she bit into a ball of tinfoil. 

“Not enough people have answered the recall. Reinhardt can’t do everything, and--”

“So let’s pick up a kid to fight our battles.” Jesse laughs, an acidic sound. “Sounds like a plan.”

“I’m not turning her away,” Winston says, his tone uncompromising. “You can’t change my mind.”

“Huh,” Jesse says, quiet. “Y’know, I think you’re growin’ into this whole ‘Strike Commander’ thing.” It’s not a compliment. “What do I know, anyway?”

“McCree.”

“Spare me.” And Jesse’s spurs sound off in the distinct fashion of someone leaving an argument.

Hana’s eyes widen before she forces them shut. Her pulse yells at her to move, but she plants her feet.

When Jesse exits Winston's lab, his eyes widen when they meet her's. "Miss Hana," He says, and then he looks away. He's sharp. He knows, because as neutral as Hana tries to make her face, there's a heat behind her eyes. A heat that makes him look away and shake his head. "I'm sorry you had to hear that."

But Hana doesn't care. "Hear what?" She drops her shoulders and look past Jesse's eyes, her voice level with formality. "Please don't apologize on my account."

And then she walks past him, past the lab, past her room. She doesn’t talk to Winston. She doesn’t talk to her friends either.

Her feet take her to her mech, and inside she’s able to put a name to the pricking in her chest and heat in her face.

 

Anger.

 

That’s something neither Hana Song nor D.va can own. It’s not a part of their brand. Not this kind of anger, the kind that makes the world feel inevitable and unceasing. D.va is a soldier--or maybe Hana Song is--but between the two of them, she shouldn’t be so vulnerable. She shouldn’t have to wipe at her eyes, which are brimming with salt and fury. She shouldn’t have to keep herself breathing at a regular pace and feel so helpless when her lungs refuse to cooperate. 

She’s a soldier.

 _(_ _She shouldn’t have to be.”)_

D.va is the face of a war effort; Hana Song is a polite girl who attends the funerals of those who die because of a pretty face; and that means neither of them get to meditate on how fucking unfair it is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha isn't it fun being young and carefree


	3. Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i needed to recover from what i did last chapter

RECENT MESSAGES

            Sun-shine

_hana please please respond. im freaking out over here. are you ok??_

            boba

_Hey!!! Sun and I are going to steal your rig if you don’t call!!!_

_I mean, that was quite the exit you drama queen, you just got quite the surge of traffic_

_But i think ur assests might be confiscated so i doubt thats really important_

_akjsdnkaskdjkk_

_come on. we miss you sun is really worried_

            Raincloud tumut

_Song, I know this is out of the blue, but Sun is very concerned. I am too. Things are weird back here. No one is sure what is going on. Your stream is getting ripped apart. I know it isn’t safe to be blatant, but please let us all know. Stay safe._

Hana clenches her fists, and then she turns off her phone.

ooo

MEKA pushes through to communicate with Winston in less than 48 hours. They tried to get to D.va first, but she hadn’t bothered to check her streams, email, or phone. Well, she purposefully blocked them. There’s a bit of a difference.

Either way, Athena alerts her to head to the debriefing room. When Hana gets there, Winston is already enduring the bubbly onslaught of Hana’s manager from a large holoscreen.

“We were simply so _worried_ for Miss Song, but with all the publicity of her stream, we think this represents a _wonderful_ opportunity--”

Ho-Sook had the smile on her face which meant she wanted to slap someone and then preferably sue them for the emotional duress of ruining her nails. She steamrolls over Winston’s cautious attempts to get a word in edge wise.

Hana shakes her head, pausing in the doorframe. Cautious doesn’t work. Hesitance means you lose. Hana Song isn’t good with that, but luckily Hana never deals with Ho-Sook.

She raises her chin, curls the corners of her lips, and then strides in. “Sook-eonni!” D.va simpers, pushing the audacity by adding on an overly-familiar honorific, “Oh, gosh, how’s it going back in Seoul?”

Ho-Sook’s expression tightens for a heartbeat before she resumes her vapid act. Not so good on her end, huh? Good. Let her pretty face be the one with the answers for once. “Oh, babe, you’re all that’s on the news! The buzz is strong and growing stronger by the second.” Her manager extends the same condescending familiarity, and it’s simultaneously laughably familiar and slightly off-beat.

Wiston looks alarmed by the rapid exchanges in Korean, but Athena is running translations in the background. He sends her a searching, concerned look with his bright eyes. Hana figures that is permission to take point.

“That’s great,” D.va agrees. Her widened fanbase probably has given her more leverage than expected if MEKA feels the need to approach this so carefully. “Branching out introduces so many opportunities for publicity.”

Ho-Sook’s smile could curdle milk. “Oh, yes. Everyone adores a rebel. Especially one so. . . _sincere_.”

Hana tilts her head carelessly, not taking the bait. “You mentioned an opportunity?”

“Councilwoman Dae has a few ideas of how to best benefit MEKA’s new alliance with Overwatch--”

Hana keeps her face still. Dae oversees the collaboration between MEKA and the military. She hasn’t expressed any. . .

“--especially since you’ve just debuted to the national stage!”

Hana’s exit must have made Dae express public support in order to save face. Or something like it. MEKA would benefit from this. Declaring Hana as AWOL would only shoot the program in the foot, especially since she’s also the face of reconstruction efforts. That’s pressure from the Ministry of Internal Security too. So Dae couldn’t call this treason.

Just like Hana had predicted. But instead of a cover-up, this shining a spot light--a magicians trick. Focus on one thing, you won’t see the switch.

The media is going to be conflicted over her stream. Independent response streams always had a wide variety of analysis, but MEKA wouldn’t be above a few deals to push search algorithms to favor a more conspiratorial (sponsored?) stream. One that poked holes in how air-headed D.va could _possibly_ leave with classified tech on her own.

Hana’s fans would trust her word. But Hana’s fans don’t vote or run the government or answer to the UN.

D.va grins, her eyes closed to hide that she wants to reach through the holoscreen and strangle Ho-Sook for _daring_ to cast doubt on her private streams. “So you had enough room to swing it?”

The common public sentiment probably read this as a new publicity stunt sponsored by MEKA, something low commitment but inflammatory.

“We would hate to prevent another court martial. It was troublesome enough the first time.”

 

Hana doesn’t get to own even a fraction of her choices.

 

“We would love to hear those opportunities,” D.va says. Overwatch could use MEKA funding, even a fraction of it. And she needed to not be a fugitive. That was a new, spicy opportunity that she hadn’t expected the luxury of having. It’s best to grab that and everything else while it was still hot. “I imagine there are a few new sponsors who would be interested in a tour, Manager,” the shrewd, pragmatic part of her says agreeably.

Ho-Sook tilts her head, seeing how D.va is willing to play ball. She must have expected more of a fight. She must see this as rolling over. “You imagine right, babe,” Ho-Sook says with a sweet smile, the kind that always happens when Hana is docile. And she is sweet. She only wants the best for D.va and her image, after all.

And D.va smiles the kind of simple thing that Hana reserves for friends, the kind of thing that makes her eyes go soft and vulnerable. The smile that hints at all the sincerity in her heart, because that’s the kind of thing Ho-Sook will fall for.  

Hana wants to rip her hair out for pretending, for sitting still, for all the moments where this woman held her back from her duty because of a job. She might even do it later.

However, D.va has already gotten with the regularly scheduled programing, even if her heart feels like dragging behind. That’s normal. The furious part of her is always useless without several tons a metal and a few plasma cannons. The furious part of her is too sincere--The sincere part of her is never going to outplay a team of hundreds backed by billions. The sincere part of her went to funerals and dreamed nightmares and cried: All the things D.va had to squeeze in between being efficient and useful.

The sincere part of her signed her body away to her country and her identity to her image.

Hana never let that Ho-Sook see that sincere part, because it would get made into something pretty and sold to the highest bidder. But D.va can dangle that bait, because the risk is worth the reward.

A magician’s trick. Show your hand. Conceal the deck.

“That’s so wonderful. I already miss being home.”

ooo

Winston is cautiously optimistic about the new partnership. It’s a huge step forward for Overwatch gaining wider acceptance. The publicity back home is now all golden--Winston only had to make a few deals concerning emergency responses to the annual Titan issues.

He thinks that they can dismantle it forever. MEKA laughs, politely, and says not to worry about it. That only makes Winston more determined to solve the problem. He pours hours of research into analyzing weaknesses and resurgence patterns. He tries to make deals to share research, all of which fizzle unproductively.

Hana doesn’t tell him that no one wants to solve the problem. No one truly powerful. The threat of titan omnics keeps MEKA important. It keeps everyone united and quiet.

Hana doesn’t say anything about that. Hana is still trying to wrap her mind around it. It only just occurred to her.

ooo

Sun sniffles over the phone. “W-we were all so worried about you.”

“I know,” Hana says softly. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re always chasing the biggest splash,” Chung says, their attempts to keep normalcy cracking under the strain. “And I can’t blame you. But let us know next time. We might fall for it and get all emotional.” They say ‘emotional’ with too little disdain. Chung is trying, but the right words will only work over text.

“I miss you. Will you come home?” Sun is biting at her lip, her eyes so openly vulnerable that it hurts.

Hana swallows, trying to relieve the tightness in her throat. She draws her bare feet up onto her small cot, and she stares at the walls. Her room in Gibraltar is more colorful than when she started. It’s not very comforting. “Not for a bit. Some big stuff is happening.”

Chung looks away too. Their roots are coming in and their hair isn’t styled; Only a little red eyeshadow smudged under their eyes. It makes them look odd. Unassembled. “You’re missing my panel. Can’t you take a break from being such a badass and come nurture my fragile ego?”

Hana laughs, because Chung is trying. “I think you’ll be fine.”

They talk, the three of them. For nearly an hour. By the end, Hana’s throat and heart are raw. Neither Sun or Chung understand why she left. Hana couldn’t really explain it in a way that would satisfy them. But they still love her. For all her unpredictable moves and rough hurts and things she could never talk about, they love her.

Hana is afraid. She nearly always is now. Fear sits in her stomach like a snake, something that writhes and tries to crawl up her throat. It's there when she lies awake and there when she walks alone and there when she doesn't have several tons of metal surrounding her. 

But this warmth in her chest, gentle and smooth, lets her remember how to be brave. 

D.va is effortlessly brave, viciously fearless. Hana Song can't be the same. She has so much more to lose. 

But she can be better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's all for this week lmao. i dont have anything else for now, let me know if you liked it bc im not above holding this fic hostage


End file.
